It increased its private-label business to become the largest private-label shirt manufacturer in the country, with customers like Lord & Taylor and Lands' End.

Sears expanded its private-label business by offering MasterCards just at the peak of the economic boom and like other card issuers, suffered as unemployment and personal bankruptcy filings rose.

She added that the company's private-label business had grown in double digits in the last year and a half.

The move to designer-directed store collections is different from the private-label business, where retailers developed basic items with outside manufacturing teams.

It also has a strong private-label business, often a way for stores to fatten their margins.

Macy's greatly expanded its private-label business during the 1980's to bask in the higher profits to be wrung from store brands.

In 1991, Whole Foods bought Wellspring Grocery, in North Carolina, and kept its co-owner Lex Alexander to run its private-label business.

The Barneys penchant for working closely with suppliers is key to the growth of its private-label business, which has doubled in the last five years, to one third of total sales.

Now he is a vice president of Albertsons, the supermarket giant, charged with building up the company's private-label business.

With a big Hong Kong buying office, Macy's expanded its private-label business in the 1980's to enjoy the higher profit margins made possible by its more than 40 store brands.